


The King Of All The Rest

by lokilickedme



Series: Myths of Asgard [2]
Category: Loki - Fandom, Norse Mythology, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bad Flirting, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Teasing, playful verbal bullying, tags to be added as the story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-03 04:47:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17277341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokilickedme/pseuds/lokilickedme
Summary: A sequel of sorts to THE TRICKSTER'S WIFE. Years after Loki's defeat of the Southern Kingdom's fearsome king Bragneire of Tarses, the two have formed an uneasy alliance and a cockeyed friendship of sorts, to the absolute screaming frustration of Loki's wife Anja - Bragneire's former war prize and the source of all contention between Asgard and the South. But now that Loki and Bragneire have allied together as warriors-for-hire to Thor's kingdom, their friendship has become the stuff of legend...and of Anja's nightmares.





	The King Of All The Rest

**Author's Note:**

> For Leah

 

 

 

"Hey!"

Anja ignored the shout, same as she always had, same as she always would.  There was no need to look, to confirm who it was that was yelling at her, on the off chance that it was someone who might actually need to speak with her.  No, it was just Bragneire, and he would sit there smirking on his steed and yelling at her until she either stomped off to the barn or begrudgingly acknowledged his presence.

"Hey, ugly girl.  Come on over here and water my horse, he's carried my heavy ass all the way from the goddamn South just to see you.  It's the least you can do."

Biting her tongue so hard she could taste blood in her mouth, she dropped the water buckets she'd been carrying to the trough for Loki's goats and straightened her back, irritated when she felt the spillage soaking into her boots.  He could come get the damn water himself if his horse was thirsty.  She hadn't invited him.  And he wasn't here to see her, she knew that much for certain.

He was here to see Loki, as always.

"I _said_ \- "

"I heard what you fucking said and you can get the damn water yourself, I'm not your servant."  Anja stopped, refusing to turn around and face him, her cheeks flaring with heat from embarrassment at her own language.  Loki was a frequent user of the fouler side of their chosen tongue but she wasn't in the habit of using such words.

Except when Bragneire showed up.  When he came to visit she always found herself either struggling to control her tongue or just setting it loose to fly at him with the worst of what Loki had taught her in their many years of marriage.  And always, always, Bragneire threw his head back and laughed that great braying laugh of his, putting her teeth on edge and firing off every fight or flight response in her body.  Her body that had never forgotten his rough touch, his drunken groping, his angry smacks.  She'd been his wife for a short time, by law.  A short time in which she proved to him that the great barbarian king not only couldn't have everything he wanted, but was capable of being stuck like a pig by a woman a third his size if he tried to take it by force.

She didn't believe for a second that he couldn't have had her, though...if he'd truly _wanted_ to.  And that was something that had bothered her for years, a gnawing question in the back of her mind that irritated her so greatly she couldn't bring herself to be civil to him when he arrived bearing gifts for her and her children.  It was something that she should have accepted as a blessing that had saved her, in the end.

The simple fact that Bragneire, a giant of a male with a natural strength that rivaled Thor's, hadn't forced her - a female the size of a child - and taken what was his despite her protests.

Protests that must have seemed laughably feeble to him.

She'd felt his strength, the raw power in him, to a tiny degree when he had hit her - a blow that he'd obviously controlled carefully, otherwise her neck would have snapped against the sheer force of it.  No, he'd definitely pulled that punch.  And he'd given up so easily when she'd tricked him into thinking he'd had her during his drunken stupor...a ruse so flimsy she was shocked he'd fallen for it.

Had he, though?

Or had he simply shrugged and gone off to visit one of the many whores she knew lived in the castle?

Why hadn't he wanted her enough to make her fulfill her wifely duties to him?

The fact that she was still asking these questions all these years later made her angry with herself - she was Loki's wife, she always had been, from day he'd pointed at her while she played in the Queen's garden and said _I want her._  She'd been a bargaining tool, she knew that now...but that didn't change the fact that Loki had grown to love her, and he'd been a good husband from the first day of their marriage until now.

The only time he faltered was when Bragneire showed up.

God how she hated that man.

He was laughing at her, right now, from up on his saddle, and the mocking sneer in his voice was tempered only by the suggestive lilt that softened his harsh accent when he spoke again.

"Still a rude little bitch.  I'd have thought another season would put a bit of temperance on your salty spirit."  He leaned forward, trying to see the front of her, though she steadfastly refused to turn toward him.  "I see your Sire hasn't managed to breed you this year - again.  What good are you if you're not spitting out heirs?  Surely he doesn't keep you around for that freckled face of yours."

He was baiting her, she knew.  If she reacted to his taunts it would only bring him great pleasure, and pleasing Bragneire of Tarses was just about the last thing she wanted to do.  But his constant insistence that she was too homely to be bred was a source of sharp and bitter venom in her gut, and as her hand flew to her face she felt that familiar rising doubt that always brought the sting of angry tears to her eyes.  She didn't know why his insults struck her to the bone.  The fact that they did made her irritated with herself in a way that nothing else ever could.

"Loki is in the village, you should ride out to meet him.  He'll be in the tavern after he's done his trading, I'm sure the pair of you can find something to do with a few barrels of mead."

Bragneire's eyes swept over Anja's dress, well worn but clean and maintained, and she felt the weight of his stare burning into the back of her head.  _Do not turn around.  Do not look at him._ His smug grin would only infuriate her and that was the one thing she suspected made the old barbarian happiest.

"I'll wait.  You can fix me something to eat after you've finished your chores."

The sound of his thick heavy leg swinging over his saddle followed by the solid thud of his boots on the ground sent a stiffness up Anja's spine.

"Wait if you want.  There's some potatoes and jerk beef in the barn.  If you want a cooked meal you'll have to go into town, this isn't a tavern."

"But I'm your guest."

"You're Loki's guest, I didn't invite you."

The laugh that slammed through the space between them sent a hard flinch to her shoulders, setting her fingers to twitching just as her head told her hands to stand down.  The blade strapped to her hip under the folds of her skirt was there for predators, wild animals, dangerous strangers.  Not barbarian kings - unless they misbehaved, in which case she would gleefully disobey Loki's long-standing admonition to please not stick knives in his friends.

The fact that he and this _monster_ were drinking buddies and war comrades made her sick to her stomach.

This monster that had held her by the back of her neck over the castle wall, threatening to let go as his people cheered - for their marriage or her demise, she never knew which.  This monster that had raised his hand to her, that had made her watch as his guards dragged her baby boy away and locked him up on the ramparts for defending her from his brutalities.  This monster that had tried his damndest to kill Loki, and had failed.

She knew why he teased her the way he did.  She'd beaten him, and the big man's heavy pride couldn't deal with the humiliation of having been bested by a slip of a woman that he didn't even find attractive.  A woman he hadn't succeeded in bedding or keeping.  It was either kiss or kill with this beast, and since he couldn't kill her now, all these years later, the best he could do was entertain himself with her ire.  Ire that he provoked with a vicious flirting laced with all the mockery and insults he could heap on her narrow little shoulders.

Because as much as he hated the sorcerer and his bitch wife, he loved them more.

And that was enough to bring him into their world on a regular basis, hungry for just the sight of them.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 

 


End file.
